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Speaker 1: There Are No Girls on the Internet, as a production

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Speaker 1: of I Heart Radio and Unbossed Creative. I'm Bridget Todd,

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Speaker 1: and this is There Are No Girls on the Internet.

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Speaker 1: The Matrix first premiered in and when it did, it

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Speaker 1: was groundbreaking. In it, many trans spoke see a metaphor

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Speaker 1: for the trans experience and breaking down the systems that

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Speaker 1: keep you from knowing your true self. I wanted to

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Speaker 1: know more about this, so I reached out to Emily Vanderworth,

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Speaker 1: the critic at large for Box dot Com. Emily's piece,

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Speaker 1: How the Matrix Universalized the trans experience and helped Me

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Speaker 1: accept my own explores how the Matrix spoke to her

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Speaker 1: own experiences as a trans woman. You can find the

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Speaker 1: link to the piece and the episode description. Now. I

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Speaker 1: was really excited to connect with Emily, but while we

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Speaker 1: were going back and forth to confirm the details of

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Speaker 1: our interview, I could tell something was up. That day,

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Speaker 1: Harper's Magazine published a letter denouncing what is sometimes known

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Speaker 1: as cancel culture, complaining that the freedom of speech and

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Speaker 1: free exchange of ideas are being stifled by intolerant voices

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Speaker 1: on the left. The letter was signed by people like

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Speaker 1: Harry Potter, author j. K Rowling, who has a history

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Speaker 1: of anti trans speech. The letter fits a common pattern

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Speaker 1: in which people with power attempt to portray public critiques

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Speaker 1: of powerful people as unacceptable, even when they use their

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Speaker 1: power to harm people less powerful than them. Someone who

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Speaker 1: also signed onto the letter works with Emily at Fox.

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Speaker 1: Pretty understandably, finding out that one of her co workers

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Speaker 1: also signed onto this letter didn't sit well with Emily.

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Speaker 1: She reached out to her employer to let them know,

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Speaker 1: and posted a segment of her response on Twitter. The letter,

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Speaker 1: signed as it is by several prominent anti trans voices

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Speaker 1: and containing many dog whistles towards anti transpositions as it does,

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Speaker 1: ideally wouldn't be signed by anybody at Fox, much less

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Speaker 1: one of the most prominent people our publication. She writes,

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Speaker 1: and while her colleague signature on this letter made her

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Speaker 1: feel uncomfortable at work, she made it clear that she

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Speaker 1: didn't want him reprimanded. She just wanted to speak her

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Speaker 1: peace and use some of that free speech they let

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Speaker 1: her claimed to revere so highly. Can you guess what

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Speaker 1: happened next? For the crime of being a trans woman

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Speaker 1: expressing herself online, Emily was harassed, threatened, and attacked. Of course,

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Speaker 1: she was angling to have this coworker fired or punished

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Speaker 1: said critics on Twitter, even though she had very clearly

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Speaker 1: said otherwise. The harassment got so bad Emily, someone who

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Speaker 1: makes her living writing online, had to leave social media.

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Speaker 1: She gave control of her accounts to her friends and

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Speaker 1: logged off. Before she left, she tweeted the hypocrisy of

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Speaker 1: celebrating so called vigorous debate only to call out those

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Speaker 1: who offer a counter opinion. For offering such a counter opinion,

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Speaker 1: It's obvious on its face, but I'll point it out anyway.

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Speaker 1: They do not believe in free speech. They believe in

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Speaker 1: free speech for them. During her time off social media,

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Speaker 1: Emily was still down to talk about the matrix, and

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Speaker 1: I thought maybe our conversation and subsequently this episode would

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Speaker 1: be all about the fallout from the Harper's letter. But honestly,

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Speaker 1: Emily is so much more interesting than any of the

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Speaker 1: points made in that letter. But the implications of Emily

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Speaker 1: being harassed off of her online platform by people who

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Speaker 1: call themselves champions of free speech isn't lost on me,

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Speaker 1: and it wasn't lost on Emily when we spoke about

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Speaker 1: finding freedom online. The enduring power of telling your story

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Speaker 1: and seeing stories like yours told starting with the Matrix.

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Speaker 1: Do you remember the first time that you saw the Matrix?

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Speaker 1: It just was like it opened up doors in my brain.

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Speaker 1: I didn't quite realize it was opening up at the time.

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Speaker 1: It was kind of one of the first ways I

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Speaker 1: started to understand my trans like entity without having any

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Speaker 1: clue that's what was happening. Um, I just knew that

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Speaker 1: when I went online and pretended to be a girl,

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Speaker 1: that felt really good in some some way. Pretended air

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Speaker 1: quotes are around that for all my transfriends listening. Um, yeah,

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Speaker 1: I I But the Matrix was kind of the first

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Speaker 1: thing I saw that really delineated that difference between reality

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Speaker 1: and the Internet and the ways that they kind of

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Speaker 1: feed into each other. Now, what's interesting about this is

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Speaker 1: that in the Matrix, reality is this like gray, horrible

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Speaker 1: post apocalyptic landscape, and the Internet is this bustling, busy metropolis.

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Speaker 1: But the Internet is like where things are wrong, where

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Speaker 1: things are not right, and reality is like what you

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Speaker 1: have to accept, which is a very pre coming out

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Speaker 1: like sort of trans experience. But it's also you know,

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Speaker 1: the movie is not just about trans identities. It's anti

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Speaker 1: capitalist it's extremely diverse and multicultural. You know. Uh, certainly

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Speaker 1: Wowskis didn't make all the right steps there, but they

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Speaker 1: were sure trying for their early two thousands, late nineties. Um,

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Speaker 1: so there's a lot more in there than just a

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Speaker 1: story about transness. But there's also a lot of stuff

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Speaker 1: in there about being trans and that's a really impressive

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Speaker 1: thing to have pulled off at that point in time. Okay,

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Speaker 1: So if you haven't seen The Matrix in a while,

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Speaker 1: here is a quick submarine. Keiana Reeves has a routine

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Speaker 1: life as a computer programmer, known by his alias Neo.

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Speaker 1: He has this nagging feeling that something isn't right with

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Speaker 1: the world. He's being presented what you know? You can't explain.

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Speaker 1: What do you feel it? You felt it your entire life,

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Speaker 1: that there's something wrong in the world. You don't know

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Speaker 1: what it is, but it's there, like a splinter in

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Speaker 1: your mind. Neo meets Trinity played by Carrie and Moss

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Speaker 1: and Morpheus played by Lawrence Fishburne, who present him with

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Speaker 1: a choice, take the Red pill or the Blue pill.

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Speaker 1: If he takes the blue pill, the world will stay

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Speaker 1: as he's always experienced it, but the Red pill reveals

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Speaker 1: the true nature of the world. That the real world

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Speaker 1: has basically been destroyed, and what we think of as

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Speaker 1: the real world is actually a computer simulation called the Matrix,

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Speaker 1: and unfortunately we humans are actually in pods of goo

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Speaker 1: being used as human batteries for machines. You take the

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Speaker 1: red Pill, you stay in Wonderland, and I show you

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Speaker 1: how deep the rabbit hole goes. As Emily writes, on

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Speaker 1: its most basic level, the movie follows characters who break

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Speaker 1: free of their real life via the Internet, creating online

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Speaker 1: identities that feel more real than their physical ones. Once

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Speaker 1: they're they choose new name for themselves, their clothes become

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Speaker 1: a whole lot cooler and less traditionally gendered. In fact,

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Speaker 1: rumor has it the role of Switch, the blonde side

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Speaker 1: character in The Matrix, was originally meant to be a

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Speaker 1: character who explicitly explores gender in the Matrix, but the

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Speaker 1: studio ended up cutting in so in terms of the

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Speaker 1: character of Switch, um there is this rumor that the

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Speaker 1: Wachowski Is wanted this character named Switch to be played

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Speaker 1: by two different actors. I believe it would be a

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Speaker 1: man in reality and a woman in the Matrix, and

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Speaker 1: that was supposed to be kind of an example of

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Speaker 1: like how the Matrix could let you explore your truest self, because, um,

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Speaker 1: there is I believe that that Morpheus says at some

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Speaker 1: point early in the film that like, who you are

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Speaker 1: in the Matrix is like your your brains self image.

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Speaker 1: So in that case, switch would be like, oh, my

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Speaker 1: self image is a woman, and the only place I

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Speaker 1: can be that is in the matrix. And that would

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Speaker 1: have complicated the whole clean dynamic between reality and the

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Speaker 1: matrix so much more. Uh. The rumor is that Warner

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Speaker 1: Brothers wouldn't allow The witchowski Is to include it. Um,

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Speaker 1: it's been very hard for people to track down the

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Speaker 1: source of this story. I tend to believe it because

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Speaker 1: I have talked to people who heard about it. But

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Speaker 1: you know, and it also really fits with what we

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Speaker 1: know about the Witch how skis now? Which is? I think?

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Speaker 1: Which is? I think what might be a little too

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Speaker 1: clean and convenient, but it certainly would have been cool.

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Speaker 1: I wish it had been in there. I think it

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Speaker 1: would have helped me figure some stuff out more quickly.

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Speaker 1: Or maybe it wouldn't happen. Maybe I just would have

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Speaker 1: been like, that's cool. When Emily saw the matrix, she

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Speaker 1: connected with it instantly. Using the Internet to become closer

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Speaker 1: to understanding your true self is something both Neo and

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Speaker 1: Emily have in common. My sister and I accidentally shared

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Speaker 1: a Yahoo Chat account. This is back when Yahoo Chat existed,

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Speaker 1: and she was she was a cheerleader, so she created

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Speaker 1: the name cheer and Chick, and I accidentally logged in

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Speaker 1: as that one day and it was immediately a barrage

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Speaker 1: of people with male coded screen names being like Hey

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Speaker 1: A s L, Hey sexy, you know all of that.

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Speaker 1: And I hated it, but I hated it in a

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Speaker 1: way that felt good, and I liked that attention in

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Speaker 1: a way that I never liked attention I got for

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Speaker 1: performing masculinity. All I had to do was change my

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Speaker 1: screen name, and suddenly, like people were like, oh my god,

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Speaker 1: you're pretty. Oh you sound really cool. Cheer and ship

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Speaker 1: do you cheerlead? M A. S L. I'm you know,

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Speaker 1: twenty two male California. Nice smile, and like, I mean,

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Speaker 1: we were all lying. We were all lying in some way.

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Speaker 1: That man probably did not have a nice smile. He

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Speaker 1: probably had to get a cold and chilling smile that

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Speaker 1: would scare you if you saw it in the middle

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Speaker 1: of the night. But I was lying and I wasn't lying.

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Speaker 1: You know, I didn't realize I wasn't lying, but I

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Speaker 1: that was the truest thing I ever did, was pretending

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Speaker 1: to be a girl online because it was it was

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Speaker 1: it was so easy. In the Matrix, Neo's journey is

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Speaker 1: accepting that he is the One, the figure who is

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Speaker 1: meant to save humanity. He struggles to accept this identity

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Speaker 1: and at times questions if he'll ever learn how to

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Speaker 1: be the one, but that power was actually within him

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Speaker 1: the whole time. He just had to accept it. It's

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Speaker 1: something that really resonates with emilyne What I often tell

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Speaker 1: trans women who are newly out is you already know

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Speaker 1: how to do this. You don't know you know how

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Speaker 1: to do this, but you are going to understand how

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Speaker 1: to operate in women's spaces and function as a woman

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Speaker 1: in society, both in all of the good and bad

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Speaker 1: ways that that is implied within the patriarchy. You have

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Speaker 1: this knowledge inside of it. You don't realize he's there,

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Speaker 1: and you're going to unlock it and you're suddenly gonna

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Speaker 1: be like, oh, yeah, okay, this makes sense. Um talk

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Speaker 1: in two women makes so much more sense than trying

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Speaker 1: to do the male bonding thing. Um, Like, going close

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Speaker 1: shopping was the thing I always hated, and that was

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Speaker 1: one of the ways that I was like, oh, I'm

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Speaker 1: probably not trans because if I was a girl, I'd

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Speaker 1: like clothes shopping, you know, that sort of that sort

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Speaker 1: of reductive stereotype. But really I didn't like going clothes

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Speaker 1: shopping because I didn't like wearing men's clothes. Now, like

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Speaker 1: one of my friends wants to go shopping, that's great,

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Speaker 1: it's fun, it's a it's a it's a chance to

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Speaker 1: bond and hang out with friends, and like, there's so

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Speaker 1: much more to womanhood, to gender, to all of that

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Speaker 1: than what I'm describing. But like, you already have the

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Speaker 1: base source code for femininity, for womanhood, for hanging out

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Speaker 1: with the girls in your brain as a trans woman.

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Speaker 1: It just you just need to find a way to

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Speaker 1: unlock it. And that was what I That was what

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Speaker 1: was happening to me in those chat rooms. I was

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Speaker 1: logging in as a girl. People were treating me like

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Speaker 1: a girl, and I goddy. I think I'm remembering. Um,

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Speaker 1: there were some intensely validating experiences there when like there

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Speaker 1: would be another woman logged in and she would like

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Speaker 1: message me and be like, oh my god, it's crazy

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Speaker 1: in here, and I'd just be like, yes, it is.

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Speaker 1: It is crazy in here. We are two women talking

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Speaker 1: about our experiences, how crazy it is to be a

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Speaker 1: lot of into this chat room of this barrage. And

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Speaker 1: then you know, we do some small talk or whatever,

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Speaker 1: and it would inevitably come to the point where she

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Speaker 1: was like, well, you know, who are you, where are

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Speaker 1: you from? And like I would kind of freeze up

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Speaker 1: because I've described this girl that wasn't real but felt real,

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Speaker 1: and I was describing myself. It was the late nineties,

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Speaker 1: so I had this super strong attachment to Reese Witherson,

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Speaker 1: who who didn't a little bit older than me, but

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Speaker 1: like Tracy Flick in election, you know, a lot of

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Speaker 1: my friends saw her as a villain, and I was like,

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Speaker 1: you know, I find her an aspirational figure. But we're

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Speaker 1: not going to unpack that. We're just not going to

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Speaker 1: think about that. And for as annoying as she can

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Speaker 1: p Tracy Flick is who I would have been. That's

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Speaker 1: that that girl I was always describing the chat rooms

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Speaker 1: like kind of driven and type A and a little

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Speaker 1: bit annoying and a little bit irritating, but inevitably is

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Speaker 1: going to like take over the world. Um And I

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Speaker 1: think the universe saw how potent that energy was within me,

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Speaker 1: So I think that's why. I think that's what happened.

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Speaker 1: And my joke was, you know, it's just like how

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Speaker 1: the Wachowski's cast Quiana Reeves and carry In Mosses trans women,

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Speaker 1: because like they are both analogs for trans women in

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Speaker 1: this movie. And you know, it was a joke, but

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Speaker 1: it's really true, like Keanu, like Neo's, Neo's journey towards

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Speaker 1: self acceptance is exactly what you're describing, and um, so honestly, honestly,

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Speaker 1: so is the whole thing that Trinity is on. Like

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Speaker 1: Trinity is like a trans woman and like her third

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Speaker 1: year of transition, who's found this like girl at her

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Speaker 1: support group who's like, I don't know what I'm gonna do.

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Speaker 1: I'm so scared. And then Trinity is like, no, we're

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Speaker 1: gonna fucking run up some walls, We're gonna bring helicopters down.

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Speaker 1: You have no idea how much power you have inside

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Speaker 1: of you, and yeah, it's it's a movie about It's

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Speaker 1: a movie about what we in the trans community called

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Speaker 1: self acceptance, the moment when you're like, Okay, something's going

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Speaker 1: on here and I need to admit it to myself,

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Speaker 1: And maybe you don't even admit your trans but you

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Speaker 1: do admit to yourself that like, there is this world

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Speaker 1: inside of you that you are not exploring, that something

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Speaker 1: needs to be done about that. The Matrix is really

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Speaker 1: about that, and I think it's telling that when it

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Speaker 1: was written both Lana and Lily Wichowski it seemed to

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Speaker 1: have even been closeted from themselves. The recent documentary Disclosure

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Speaker 1: on Netflix, Lily Wachowski is interviewed about The Matrix and

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Speaker 1: she's like, at the time, I didn't know, but I

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Speaker 1: watched it now and I'm like, oh, yeah, okay. Um.

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Speaker 1: Laana Wachowski came out sometime in the early two thousands,

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Speaker 1: came out to herself. She came out publicly in I

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Speaker 1: think two thousand two nine somewhere they're in there now.

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Speaker 1: She came up publicly around the RelA of Cloud Alice,

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Speaker 1: which was two thousand twelve. There were rumors about her

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Speaker 1: for like the entirety of the two thousand's um and

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Speaker 1: they were pretty cruel and nasty rumors, and I don't

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Speaker 1: recommend going to look up their stories because they are bad.

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Speaker 1: The Matrix was directed by sisters Lana and Lily Wachowski,

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Speaker 1: who would later both publicly come out of strands in

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Speaker 1: Lanna gave a moving acceptance speech for the HRC's Visibility

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Speaker 1: Award about her journey to self acceptance and the desire

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Speaker 1: to imagine and build worlds where all people can see

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Speaker 1: themselves fully reflected. I am here because when I was young,

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Speaker 1: I wanted very badly to be a writer. I wanted

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Speaker 1: to be a filmmaker, but I couldn't find anyone like

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Speaker 1: me in the world, and it felt that my dreams

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Speaker 1: were foreclosed simply because my gender was less typical than others.

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Speaker 1: But Lana Wachowski was kind of on the cusp of

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Speaker 1: coming out when they were making The Matrix, and you

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Speaker 1: can see that within that movie. It is about taking

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Speaker 1: that journey towards self acceptance. And honestly, the poor reputation

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Speaker 1: of the Matrix sequels, both of which I really like,

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Speaker 1: and the second Matrix reloaded, I adore. I think it's

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Speaker 1: one of their best movies. Both of those sequels are

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Speaker 1: about what happens after you self accept and the ways

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Speaker 1: that it kind of deconstructs the world in ways that

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Speaker 1: you're not ready for that you don't always understand. There's

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Speaker 1: this famous meme joke in UM in trans Woman Circles

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Speaker 1: that's like it's the galaxy brain meme. So it starts,

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Speaker 1: I wish I was a girl, UM, and the second

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Speaker 1: one is I can just be a girl, and the

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Speaker 1: third one is I always was a girl, and then

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Speaker 1: the final one the Galaxy brain is destroy capitalism. Because

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Speaker 1: that's what happens is you realize you question the gender

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Speaker 1: binary and you're like, oh, wait, I should I just

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Speaker 1: should be on the other side of it, or I

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Speaker 1: should not be on the binary at all, or I

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Speaker 1: should be totally removed from the spectrum of gender, or

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Speaker 1: whatever your experience is, and you're suddenly like, wait, all

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Speaker 1: systems are kind have made up and you're like, oh,

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Speaker 1: we can just you know, once you see that you're

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Speaker 1: seeing the matrix, you can't unsee it, and suddenly are like,

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Speaker 1: how could we build better systems? Like if human beings

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Speaker 1: require systems to operate and live and evolve, how can

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Speaker 1: we do something better, and and that's kind of what

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Speaker 1: the Matrix trilogy is about. Let's take a quick break

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Speaker 1: center back. At its core, the Matrix is about someone

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Speaker 1: seeking out the framework for understanding who they really are

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Speaker 1: and having a hard time figuring out what it all means.

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Speaker 1: At the beginning of the film, Neo's life is quote

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Speaker 1: normal life follows a specific routine, but online things are different.

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Speaker 1: And while the Matrix can be read as a metaphor

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Speaker 1: for trans identity, built by two trans women, it's pretty

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Speaker 1: interesting that the language of the red pill has been

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Speaker 1: latched onto by anti feminist, white supremacist groups in those

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Speaker 1: online spaces, being quote red pilled if it means for

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Speaker 1: men to open their eyes to all the ways that

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Speaker 1: women and the feminists have misled them, And it's kind

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Speaker 1: of funny when you think about it. Yeah. I think

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Speaker 1: there is this element of trying to build careful, scripted

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Speaker 1: routines for yourself that I found to be often very

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Speaker 1: true of pre coming out trans people across the board.

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Speaker 1: You don't entirely understand the gender you were born into,

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Speaker 1: but you can like make rules for yourself. You can

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Speaker 1: create a programming language, you can exist within it. That's

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Speaker 1: exactly what Neo is doing at the start of the movie.

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Speaker 1: He has all these routines, he has all these subsystems.

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Speaker 1: He's a program working within a program, and when he

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Speaker 1: breaks out of the matrix, he begins to understand the

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Speaker 1: ways in which he was misled and the ways in

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Speaker 1: which society um the ways in which society did not

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Speaker 1: give him a language for who he was. So yeah,

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Speaker 1: I think there is I think there is a lot

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Speaker 1: of metaphorical power to that idea of the red Pill.

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Speaker 1: Clearly a lot of people have taken different ideas from it,

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Speaker 1: but there is metaphorical power to this idea that you're

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Speaker 1: being lied to. Your life is a program. You do

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Speaker 1: not have free will, you need to develop free will

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Speaker 1: by any means necessary, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. And that is

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Speaker 1: such a beautiful idea and a beautiful realization of transidentities.

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Speaker 1: That is simultaneously something that apparently spoke to the all right, So,

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Speaker 1: which is so funny. I mean, you point this out

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Speaker 1: in your piece that the Right sees like taking the

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Speaker 1: red Pill as this, you know, breaking through this lie

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Speaker 1: that you know that has been holding down men and

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Speaker 1: were so oppressed. But it's like, actually you're lattic onto

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Speaker 1: something that trans women like like a framework that trans

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Speaker 1: women built for you. You know, it's like very it's

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Speaker 1: like almost kind of funny. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Um

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Speaker 1: it's uh, it's horribly hilariously misguided. But at the same

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Speaker 1: time it makes sense because, like I said earlier, this

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Speaker 1: movie is pretty anti capitalist, not like hugely anti capitalist,

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Speaker 1: but quite a bit. And there's this there's this range

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Speaker 1: of movies from the nineties that are sort of about

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Speaker 1: the ways in which the quote unquote victory of capitalism

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Speaker 1: over communism and sort of the end of history. Uh,

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Speaker 1: the as the the writer Francis Fukuyama dubbed it, the

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Speaker 1: end of history had resulted in neoliberalism triumphing over everything

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Speaker 1: else and capitalism the best system and all of this,

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Speaker 1: and there's all these movies about well, then why does

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Speaker 1: that feel so empty? You know? You have um, I

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Speaker 1: think an early example that is ground Talk Day. Ground

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Speaker 1: Talk Day is about like being trapped in these routines

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Speaker 1: that don't really make sense and then learning to become

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Speaker 1: a better person through those routines. But right in the

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Speaker 1: year the Matrix comes out, you have the Matrix, which

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Speaker 1: is about that you have fight Club, which is about that.

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Speaker 1: You have American Beauty, which is about that you have

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Speaker 1: being John Malkovich, which is kind of about that. I

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Speaker 1: think the Matrix is the one that's held up best

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Speaker 1: of those. I love being John Malkovich for American Beauty,

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Speaker 1: let's not talk about that. It's kind of movie when

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Speaker 1: you think about it. Yeah, My Club is good, but

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Speaker 1: so many people have taken the wrong message from it

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Speaker 1: that it's it's also harder to defend. At least with

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Speaker 1: the Matrix, you can be like, yeah, a lot of

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Speaker 1: people have taken the wrong message from this, but it

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Speaker 1: was directed by two trans women, so um. But yeah,

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Speaker 1: there's this element of anti capitalism. So when people are like,

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Speaker 1: I need to reject the prison that society has placed

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Speaker 1: me in, they're so they're so close to what this

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Speaker 1: movie is about. They're so close to this idea that, like,

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Speaker 1: even if you don't want to go so far as

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Speaker 1: to say capitalism is broken, to say that consumerism is broken,

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Speaker 1: the idea that you can find freedom and self identity

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Speaker 1: in things like in essence. I think every major philosophy,

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Speaker 1: every major religion, rejects that idea. Things are not ourselves,

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Speaker 1: we are not our things, So like, at the very least,

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Speaker 1: that's what the Matrix is really talking about. So to

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Speaker 1: talk about like to take get that far, get that

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Speaker 1: far and grasping its message and get to a place

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Speaker 1: where you're like, actually, it's talking about how women have

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Speaker 1: made the world bad. Like I don't know how you

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Speaker 1: make that that swerve. But every time I talk about

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Speaker 1: this movie and I talk about it as an allegory

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Speaker 1: for trans identities, um you know, like vox or someone

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Speaker 1: posted on Facebook and the comments are full of people

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Speaker 1: who are like, no, it's not about that, it's about this,

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Speaker 1: and like, yes, that's your that is absolutely your right

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Speaker 1: to that interpretation. That's how criticism works, that's how um our,

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Speaker 1: understanding of art and the death of the author and

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Speaker 1: all of that works. But at a certain point, the

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Speaker 1: fact that it was written by two trans women and

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Speaker 1: directed by two trans women has to enter into your

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Speaker 1: consider oderration of what it's all about, and that for

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Speaker 1: a lot of people, the idea that it's a trans

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Speaker 1: metaphor is mind blowing. Like a friend of mine, Aaron

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Speaker 1: read another trans woman, posted on Twitter, you know, the

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Speaker 1: Matrix is directed by two trans women, and there's a

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Speaker 1: metaphor for coming out somethink that's simple, and like fifty

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Speaker 1: thousand people liked it, and we're like, just blew my

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Speaker 1: mind and the cysts, I just don't know what we're

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Speaker 1: gonna do. Why do you think the idea that the

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Speaker 1: matrix is a metaphor for the trans experience kind of

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Speaker 1: goes overlook so often? I mean, it's it's metaphor. Um,

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Speaker 1: Let's take a look at Star Wars. You know. Star

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Speaker 1: Wars is the probably the movie before the Matrix. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's definitely the movie before the Matrix that changed the

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Speaker 1: film industry at the most. And the Matrix lives in

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Speaker 1: Star Wars shadow in the way that everything after the

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Speaker 1: Matrix lives in the Matrix is shadow. So you look

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Speaker 1: back at Star Wars. Star Wars is a movie that

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Speaker 1: George Lucas when he started writing, it was like, Okay,

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Speaker 1: America's the Empire, the via Cong are the rebels. Yet

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Speaker 1: Americans always self identify with the rebels, because you know,

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Speaker 1: that's how we like to think of ourselves. Our our

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Speaker 1: foundational myth is scrappy underdogs overcoming this gigantic colonial power.

429
00:24:15,520 --> 00:24:17,479
Speaker 1: But we don't think about how the makeup of those

430
00:24:17,480 --> 00:24:20,640
Speaker 1: scrappy Underdogs was all white landowning men, you know, many

431
00:24:20,680 --> 00:24:23,680
Speaker 1: of whom were slave owners, many of and even other

432
00:24:23,720 --> 00:24:25,880
Speaker 1: people you know who weren't slave owners have done other

433
00:24:25,920 --> 00:24:29,679
Speaker 1: horrible things. And we were displacing indigenous peoples and forcing

434
00:24:29,720 --> 00:24:33,000
Speaker 1: them to move further and further west. And there's a

435
00:24:33,000 --> 00:24:35,479
Speaker 1: lot to that foundational myth that gets written out. So

436
00:24:35,520 --> 00:24:39,400
Speaker 1: we can see ourselves as the rebel alliance in Star Wars.

437
00:24:39,400 --> 00:24:42,320
Speaker 1: But the movies continue to make more and more explicit

438
00:24:42,560 --> 00:24:46,479
Speaker 1: that any colonial power like the United States is in

439
00:24:46,520 --> 00:24:49,280
Speaker 1: line with the empire and the people who are being

440
00:24:49,320 --> 00:24:52,439
Speaker 1: colonized are in line with the rebels. And yet you know,

441
00:24:52,520 --> 00:24:55,680
Speaker 1: we still continue to be like, yep, we're the rebel alliance.

442
00:24:56,200 --> 00:24:59,360
Speaker 1: Anytime you take a story that is based in reality

443
00:24:59,440 --> 00:25:01,479
Speaker 1: and moving in the metaphor, it's going to be so

444
00:25:01,520 --> 00:25:03,560
Speaker 1: many people who are like, yeah, I see this metaphor

445
00:25:03,600 --> 00:25:08,000
Speaker 1: as directly reflecting my experience, and like that's fair, that's fine,

446
00:25:08,280 --> 00:25:11,880
Speaker 1: you know, like all of those interpretations are valid. That's

447
00:25:11,880 --> 00:25:14,200
Speaker 1: what happens when you're dealing with metaphor, and science fiction

448
00:25:14,320 --> 00:25:18,240
Speaker 1: is inevitably always based on metaphor. In some way, I

449
00:25:18,280 --> 00:25:20,280
Speaker 1: think it's important to take into mind that two trans

450
00:25:20,320 --> 00:25:22,359
Speaker 1: women made this film, but I'm also a trans woman.

451
00:25:22,480 --> 00:25:26,040
Speaker 1: I like the fact that there's this gigantic, defining piece

452
00:25:26,040 --> 00:25:29,200
Speaker 1: of pop pop culture directed by two trans women. When

453
00:25:29,200 --> 00:25:33,040
Speaker 1: I got to interview Lily Wichowski, I nearly crumbled into dust,

454
00:25:33,119 --> 00:25:36,560
Speaker 1: Like I almost fell into fell onto the floor. And

455
00:25:36,600 --> 00:25:39,440
Speaker 1: then she said she'd read my article, and like I,

456
00:25:40,520 --> 00:25:44,119
Speaker 1: I left my body. Uh, I went up to heaven

457
00:25:44,200 --> 00:25:46,600
Speaker 1: for a little bit, came back down. I was like, yes,

458
00:25:48,200 --> 00:25:51,280
Speaker 1: if you haven't already guessed, stories have been immensely gratifying

459
00:25:51,320 --> 00:25:54,960
Speaker 1: for Emily's understanding of herself. When she publicly came out

460
00:25:54,960 --> 00:25:57,320
Speaker 1: of trands, she'd already made a career out of writing

461
00:25:57,359 --> 00:26:01,399
Speaker 1: publicly online. In a piece for Box, she used the

462
00:26:01,440 --> 00:26:04,400
Speaker 1: Handmaid's Tale as a means of coming to terms with

463
00:26:04,840 --> 00:26:07,600
Speaker 1: and breaking down the walls around what it means to

464
00:26:07,640 --> 00:26:11,320
Speaker 1: be a woman at once a kind of freedom and depression.

465
00:26:12,119 --> 00:26:15,159
Speaker 1: What is it about stories and movies and science fiction

466
00:26:15,200 --> 00:26:17,680
Speaker 1: and TV shows that really helps you understand the world

467
00:26:17,680 --> 00:26:22,800
Speaker 1: around you and your place in it. Understanding womanhood is

468
00:26:23,000 --> 00:26:27,719
Speaker 1: understanding your oppression within the patriarchy. That doesn't mean that

469
00:26:27,760 --> 00:26:31,720
Speaker 1: you yourself are always oppressed. There are a million ways well,

470
00:26:31,800 --> 00:26:33,760
Speaker 1: there are three big ways that I have a lot

471
00:26:33,760 --> 00:26:37,000
Speaker 1: more privilege than most trans women. I'm white, so I

472
00:26:37,080 --> 00:26:40,320
Speaker 1: benefit from these societal privileges afforded to white people in America.

473
00:26:40,720 --> 00:26:43,679
Speaker 1: I am upper middle class, and I work for a

474
00:26:43,720 --> 00:26:46,879
Speaker 1: company that covers you know, my health expenses. And I

475
00:26:46,920 --> 00:26:49,280
Speaker 1: live in California, which is a state that has few

476
00:26:49,440 --> 00:26:52,320
Speaker 1: structural barriers to transition. If you're an adult and you

477
00:26:52,320 --> 00:26:56,480
Speaker 1: want to take hormones, California is like, great, go for it. Um.

478
00:26:56,560 --> 00:26:58,119
Speaker 1: Those are three things I have that a lot of

479
00:26:58,119 --> 00:27:01,080
Speaker 1: trans women in the world, the aask majority of trans

480
00:27:01,080 --> 00:27:03,760
Speaker 1: women in the world do not have those three advantages.

481
00:27:04,200 --> 00:27:08,240
Speaker 1: So that has helped me considerably. And I think especially

482
00:27:08,240 --> 00:27:12,640
Speaker 1: when you grow up as a seemingly when you as

483
00:27:12,680 --> 00:27:14,560
Speaker 1: when you grow up seeming to the world like a

484
00:27:14,560 --> 00:27:17,920
Speaker 1: white straight system man, you don't encounter a lot of

485
00:27:17,960 --> 00:27:23,119
Speaker 1: structural oppression. UM. One of the ways that film and

486
00:27:23,240 --> 00:27:29,159
Speaker 1: television helps us understand ourselves better is exposes us to

487
00:27:29,200 --> 00:27:34,520
Speaker 1: the stories of other people. UM. For instance, I am

488
00:27:35,080 --> 00:27:38,360
Speaker 1: never going to have the experience of growing up that

489
00:27:38,680 --> 00:27:43,560
Speaker 1: Barry Jenkins and Terrell Alvin McCreary did. But Moonlight is

490
00:27:43,600 --> 00:27:46,560
Speaker 1: a movie that opens that window. To me, I can't

491
00:27:46,600 --> 00:27:49,280
Speaker 1: completely understand it, but I can empathize with it because

492
00:27:49,320 --> 00:27:52,159
Speaker 1: I've seen through that window. I've seen people live those lives.

493
00:27:53,520 --> 00:27:55,840
Speaker 1: And the thing that happens is when the film and

494
00:27:55,840 --> 00:28:03,040
Speaker 1: television are such potent, powerful, um, such potent, powerful expressions

495
00:28:03,080 --> 00:28:06,959
Speaker 1: of the self, because they're so riveting, they draw you

496
00:28:07,000 --> 00:28:09,439
Speaker 1: in so much. I know plenty of trans women who

497
00:28:09,480 --> 00:28:12,760
Speaker 1: found themselves through like video games, which is a similar situation.

498
00:28:13,080 --> 00:28:15,560
Speaker 1: You know, they famously would always play the female character

499
00:28:15,640 --> 00:28:19,359
Speaker 1: and be like this feels good. Um. Movies and television

500
00:28:19,800 --> 00:28:23,800
Speaker 1: give you that space to open up and understand yourself better.

501
00:28:24,400 --> 00:28:26,160
Speaker 1: And at some point I had to confront the fact

502
00:28:26,200 --> 00:28:28,560
Speaker 1: that the characters I always most identified with were women.

503
00:28:28,960 --> 00:28:32,960
Speaker 1: Like I always identified with Willow on Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

504
00:28:33,400 --> 00:28:36,440
Speaker 1: I always identified with Rory on Gilmore Girls. You know,

505
00:28:36,960 --> 00:28:40,640
Speaker 1: there was I just had this thing where I was like, Oh,

506
00:28:40,680 --> 00:28:44,440
Speaker 1: these these girls, these teenage girls when I was a teenager,

507
00:28:45,000 --> 00:28:47,520
Speaker 1: these teenage girls just they just speak to me on

508
00:28:47,560 --> 00:28:52,680
Speaker 1: some fundamental level. Um. Similarly, Peggy Olsen on Madman. When

509
00:28:52,720 --> 00:28:54,440
Speaker 1: I became an adult, I was like, oh, she's always

510
00:28:54,440 --> 00:28:56,440
Speaker 1: overlooked for her work, and my brain would be like

511
00:28:57,440 --> 00:29:00,400
Speaker 1: you are not overlooked for your work. So part of

512
00:29:00,440 --> 00:29:04,400
Speaker 1: it is understanding the structural oppression that women face throughout

513
00:29:04,480 --> 00:29:07,080
Speaker 1: the world, particularly in the United States, and coming to

514
00:29:07,160 --> 00:29:09,360
Speaker 1: understand that within yourself and the ways that you see

515
00:29:09,360 --> 00:29:13,560
Speaker 1: it without in the world. But also there's an element

516
00:29:13,600 --> 00:29:19,280
Speaker 1: of personal oppression. I wasn't facing the oppression. I wasn't

517
00:29:19,320 --> 00:29:23,280
Speaker 1: facing the roadblocks that Peggy Olsen faced to get my

518
00:29:23,320 --> 00:29:26,920
Speaker 1: writing notice, to get things published. The second I was like,

519
00:29:26,960 --> 00:29:29,160
Speaker 1: you know, I think I'd like to be a TV critic,

520
00:29:29,320 --> 00:29:33,240
Speaker 1: Like people were like, here's some jobs, white man, and

521
00:29:34,720 --> 00:29:36,480
Speaker 1: kind of like now I look back, and that kind

522
00:29:36,480 --> 00:29:39,680
Speaker 1: of blows my mind. Like my qualification was I was

523
00:29:39,720 --> 00:29:41,400
Speaker 1: a good writer, and I don't want to just march

524
00:29:41,480 --> 00:29:43,440
Speaker 1: out that is a good qualification to have if you

525
00:29:43,440 --> 00:29:46,400
Speaker 1: want to be a writer. But I just kind of

526
00:29:46,440 --> 00:29:47,960
Speaker 1: asked for the job and people gave it to me,

527
00:29:48,040 --> 00:29:52,520
Speaker 1: and like, WHOA, what is that? So I was not

528
00:29:52,560 --> 00:29:55,280
Speaker 1: being kept down like Peggy Olsen, but I was. I

529
00:29:55,320 --> 00:29:57,760
Speaker 1: was keeping myself down. Peggy Olson was doing all the

530
00:29:57,800 --> 00:29:59,560
Speaker 1: writing in the back of my brain and this guy

531
00:29:59,680 --> 00:30:04,280
Speaker 1: was all the credit for it. And there is an

532
00:30:04,280 --> 00:30:08,480
Speaker 1: element of yes, understanding structural oppression. Yes, Understanding the patriarchy, yes,

533
00:30:08,600 --> 00:30:12,000
Speaker 1: understanding the ways that women are are just just the

534
00:30:12,080 --> 00:30:15,600
Speaker 1: microaggressions that women face every day when someone's like, hey, sweetie,

535
00:30:15,600 --> 00:30:17,880
Speaker 1: how you do it, and you're just like, hey, fine.

536
00:30:19,240 --> 00:30:25,880
Speaker 1: But even deeper and more powerful is the coming to

537
00:30:26,040 --> 00:30:29,920
Speaker 1: understand and conceptualize of yourself as a woman and breaking

538
00:30:30,000 --> 00:30:34,200
Speaker 1: through the layers of oppression you have placed upon yourself.

539
00:30:34,440 --> 00:30:36,480
Speaker 1: And the reason the Internet is such a powerful tool

540
00:30:36,560 --> 00:30:40,080
Speaker 1: to do that is because it gives that that Peggy

541
00:30:40,160 --> 00:30:43,280
Speaker 1: Olson in the back of my brain an outlet where

542
00:30:43,320 --> 00:30:46,120
Speaker 1: she can keep writing, and she can keep leaving the

543
00:30:46,240 --> 00:30:49,680
Speaker 1: messages in that writing, and I can be like, you know,

544
00:30:49,800 --> 00:30:52,200
Speaker 1: this is really interesting, the way that you seem disconnected

545
00:30:52,240 --> 00:30:54,400
Speaker 1: from yourself, as though your true self is someone else,

546
00:30:54,480 --> 00:30:56,560
Speaker 1: and then be like, oh, it's two thirteen. Let's put

547
00:30:56,600 --> 00:30:59,920
Speaker 1: that on hold for a while. Um, so yeah, it is.

548
00:31:00,720 --> 00:31:04,360
Speaker 1: It is a way in which the larger oppressions of

549
00:31:04,440 --> 00:31:08,360
Speaker 1: society become visited in the personal oppression of the self,

550
00:31:08,400 --> 00:31:11,680
Speaker 1: because you're terrified of the thought if I'm trans, that

551
00:31:11,720 --> 00:31:14,240
Speaker 1: seems really hard. Can I just try to not be trans?

552
00:31:14,880 --> 00:31:16,760
Speaker 1: That's what society is asking you to do, is to

553
00:31:16,800 --> 00:31:19,680
Speaker 1: try to not be trans, and you are manifesting that

554
00:31:19,720 --> 00:31:23,600
Speaker 1: within yourself. Film and television helps you break through that wall.

555
00:31:24,480 --> 00:31:26,320
Speaker 1: I probably don't need to tell you that being a

556
00:31:26,360 --> 00:31:30,400
Speaker 1: woman online sometimes means dealing with harassment. And the fact is,

557
00:31:31,000 --> 00:31:33,440
Speaker 1: as we're talking, Emily has been driven off of her

558
00:31:33,480 --> 00:31:36,280
Speaker 1: own platforms because people don't like that she's speaking up

559
00:31:36,280 --> 00:31:39,480
Speaker 1: as the authority of her own experience. But for all

560
00:31:39,480 --> 00:31:42,600
Speaker 1: the bad experience that she faces online, it's also where

561
00:31:42,600 --> 00:31:45,960
Speaker 1: she builds community with other trans women. Every day, I

562
00:31:46,040 --> 00:31:48,240
Speaker 1: wake up to two or three Twitter d m so

563
00:31:48,280 --> 00:31:50,600
Speaker 1: I leave my Twitter dms open because that's how a

564
00:31:50,600 --> 00:31:53,520
Speaker 1: lot of questioning trans women find me, and that is

565
00:31:53,600 --> 00:31:55,120
Speaker 1: very important to me. That is part of what I

566
00:31:55,160 --> 00:31:56,920
Speaker 1: think is like part of my reason to be on

567
00:31:56,960 --> 00:31:59,520
Speaker 1: this planet is to help those trans women find their way.

568
00:32:00,560 --> 00:32:03,880
Speaker 1: And I wake up to two or three d m

569
00:32:03,960 --> 00:32:06,840
Speaker 1: s from guys who are like, hey, you're beautiful, Hey

570
00:32:06,880 --> 00:32:09,160
Speaker 1: you know and it's not even like bad, it's just

571
00:32:09,240 --> 00:32:11,360
Speaker 1: kind of like I don't need this, and I just

572
00:32:11,440 --> 00:32:15,200
Speaker 1: delete them and like, that's just become I realized the

573
00:32:15,200 --> 00:32:17,960
Speaker 1: other day that has become a low level radiation hum

574
00:32:18,000 --> 00:32:20,080
Speaker 1: in my life. I'm just like, you know what, this

575
00:32:20,200 --> 00:32:22,320
Speaker 1: is the thing I have to put up with, and

576
00:32:22,360 --> 00:32:24,560
Speaker 1: I shouldn't have to put up with it. It's not

577
00:32:24,720 --> 00:32:26,760
Speaker 1: a thing I should have to put up with. But

578
00:32:27,880 --> 00:32:30,160
Speaker 1: you just getting near to it, you're just like, Okay,

579
00:32:30,560 --> 00:32:32,840
Speaker 1: I'm a woman online. This is just how it is.

580
00:32:34,200 --> 00:32:36,040
Speaker 1: And that also goes for you know, being a trans

581
00:32:36,120 --> 00:32:40,040
Speaker 1: woman online. There are people who I really don't like

582
00:32:40,080 --> 00:32:42,400
Speaker 1: trans women, but I tend to have them blocked or

583
00:32:42,440 --> 00:32:44,920
Speaker 1: I tend to have them, I tend to not listen

584
00:32:44,960 --> 00:32:46,880
Speaker 1: to them and just you know, immediately get rid of

585
00:32:46,920 --> 00:32:50,240
Speaker 1: them from my my feed. There are just as many

586
00:32:50,280 --> 00:32:54,160
Speaker 1: people who and these are trickier to find. Usually, there

587
00:32:54,160 --> 00:32:57,440
Speaker 1: are people who fetishize trans identities. There's people there are

588
00:32:57,480 --> 00:33:02,240
Speaker 1: there are you know, men who um love trans women

589
00:33:02,480 --> 00:33:05,760
Speaker 1: and like I want to, but have turned it into

590
00:33:05,800 --> 00:33:07,880
Speaker 1: kind of a fetish and have turned my identity into

591
00:33:07,920 --> 00:33:09,479
Speaker 1: kind of a fetish. And in the community we call

592
00:33:09,560 --> 00:33:12,719
Speaker 1: them chasers. Um, I don't know if I'm like breaking

593
00:33:13,000 --> 00:33:17,680
Speaker 1: breaking a law saying that among the cists, but uh,

594
00:33:19,000 --> 00:33:22,200
Speaker 1: And like they're harder to find because they're often just

595
00:33:22,240 --> 00:33:23,960
Speaker 1: like they reply to you and they're like you're great,

596
00:33:24,080 --> 00:33:25,760
Speaker 1: way to go, and you're like, oh, thank you. For

597
00:33:25,800 --> 00:33:29,440
Speaker 1: your support. Good male ally, but sometimes and the problem

598
00:33:29,480 --> 00:33:32,440
Speaker 1: is sometimes they're what we call eggs, you know, which

599
00:33:32,480 --> 00:33:34,600
Speaker 1: is a trans woman who hasn't yet self accepted, but

600
00:33:34,640 --> 00:33:37,440
Speaker 1: it's knocking at that door and like them saying you're

601
00:33:37,440 --> 00:33:39,320
Speaker 1: a great way to go. Like I remember when Laura

602
00:33:39,400 --> 00:33:42,719
Speaker 1: Jane Grace, the cigarettom against me came out, I posted

603
00:33:42,880 --> 00:33:44,880
Speaker 1: a comment on my website, The A D Club, where

604
00:33:44,920 --> 00:33:46,600
Speaker 1: I was writing at the time. I posted a comment

605
00:33:46,640 --> 00:33:49,680
Speaker 1: that was like, good for her, she did great, and

606
00:33:49,720 --> 00:33:52,960
Speaker 1: it's really good whenever anyone can overcome, you know, find

607
00:33:52,960 --> 00:33:55,160
Speaker 1: themselves blah blah blah. And if you go find it,

608
00:33:55,160 --> 00:33:58,160
Speaker 1: it's so obviously about myself and I don't know how

609
00:33:58,200 --> 00:34:01,280
Speaker 1: to say that, and it's just but at the time

610
00:34:01,280 --> 00:34:03,640
Speaker 1: I just was like, yeah, what a great thing, And

611
00:34:03,800 --> 00:34:07,360
Speaker 1: like that's the problem. You can't always tell the people

612
00:34:07,360 --> 00:34:09,360
Speaker 1: who fetishize you from the people who really do just

613
00:34:09,400 --> 00:34:11,360
Speaker 1: want to celebrate you, or the people who are celebrating

614
00:34:11,360 --> 00:34:14,240
Speaker 1: you because they want to celebrate themselves, because there's huge

615
00:34:14,280 --> 00:34:19,440
Speaker 1: overlap in all of those areas. So I guess on

616
00:34:19,480 --> 00:34:21,319
Speaker 1: some level, I just got used to the low level

617
00:34:21,560 --> 00:34:26,160
Speaker 1: radiation home of terrible people. On another level, UM. I

618
00:34:26,200 --> 00:34:31,640
Speaker 1: mentioned earlier my best friend and she reached out to

619
00:34:31,920 --> 00:34:36,880
Speaker 1: my I had a long for a long time, I

620
00:34:36,880 --> 00:34:39,880
Speaker 1: had a secret Twitter account where I posted as a

621
00:34:39,880 --> 00:34:43,440
Speaker 1: girl named Emily and was talking about my journey towards transition.

622
00:34:43,520 --> 00:34:46,960
Speaker 1: I had that account for over a year before I

623
00:34:46,960 --> 00:34:49,279
Speaker 1: came out publicly, and I still have it. Um, it's

624
00:34:49,400 --> 00:34:52,360
Speaker 1: a Sandalwood Emily. I leave it up so that people

625
00:34:52,360 --> 00:34:54,800
Speaker 1: who are questioning can go back and see my journey,

626
00:34:54,880 --> 00:34:57,919
Speaker 1: go back to the very start in March and read

627
00:34:57,960 --> 00:35:04,960
Speaker 1: all the way through. Um. But uh, my best friend

628
00:35:05,520 --> 00:35:09,200
Speaker 1: reached out to me in d M there and was like, listen,

629
00:35:09,320 --> 00:35:11,600
Speaker 1: I really love the stuff you've written. Because I was

630
00:35:11,600 --> 00:35:15,160
Speaker 1: writing a newsletter under the name Emily Emily sandal Wood,

631
00:35:15,520 --> 00:35:18,600
Speaker 1: and she just was like, I really love the stuff

632
00:35:18,600 --> 00:35:22,280
Speaker 1: you've written. I speak so deeply to me. I'm pretty

633
00:35:22,320 --> 00:35:28,600
Speaker 1: sure I'm a trans woman. It was her like guy account. Um,

634
00:35:28,640 --> 00:35:34,640
Speaker 1: I will take one million harassing tweets for that one

635
00:35:34,719 --> 00:35:40,600
Speaker 1: DM for that. She is my heart. She and I

636
00:35:40,640 --> 00:35:45,759
Speaker 1: have been through so much together and I adore her.

637
00:35:48,000 --> 00:35:53,080
Speaker 1: The Internet is a terrible place, but it's also a

638
00:35:53,080 --> 00:35:57,399
Speaker 1: place where you can find the people you need. I

639
00:35:57,440 --> 00:36:00,400
Speaker 1: am and I'm in so many communities without of trans

640
00:36:00,480 --> 00:36:03,200
Speaker 1: people that are closed you know, they're they're slacks or

641
00:36:03,280 --> 00:36:06,920
Speaker 1: discords or Facebook groups or whatever. And those people have

642
00:36:07,000 --> 00:36:10,080
Speaker 1: found each other over the Internet, usually overread it or Twitter,

643
00:36:10,160 --> 00:36:15,000
Speaker 1: two platforms we think of as gross and horrible and bad,

644
00:36:15,560 --> 00:36:21,440
Speaker 1: and yes they are, and yes I have been subject

645
00:36:21,520 --> 00:36:25,200
Speaker 1: to Twitter harassment um, both on a hugely large scale

646
00:36:25,239 --> 00:36:27,520
Speaker 1: and on as really minor scale where you just learned

647
00:36:27,560 --> 00:36:29,160
Speaker 1: to tune it out, which is maybe not what you

648
00:36:29,200 --> 00:36:32,319
Speaker 1: should do. The second I came out, somebody on four

649
00:36:32,400 --> 00:36:36,520
Speaker 1: chun Um doctored up an article supposedly written by me

650
00:36:37,200 --> 00:36:41,880
Speaker 1: about how white babies are white supremacy that I had

651
00:36:41,920 --> 00:36:46,040
Speaker 1: supposedly written this and it was obviously fake. It didn't

652
00:36:46,120 --> 00:36:50,359
Speaker 1: use any of Box's typefaces. It was written published under

653
00:36:50,680 --> 00:36:53,880
Speaker 1: the my old name and then the last name Van Whirf,

654
00:36:53,920 --> 00:37:00,720
Speaker 1: which is the name I've never viewed. It's just easy, Honestly.

655
00:37:00,760 --> 00:37:03,799
Speaker 1: The thing I respect least is the craftsmanship. Like if

656
00:37:03,840 --> 00:37:07,960
Speaker 1: you want to try to like get me in trouble

657
00:37:08,000 --> 00:37:10,680
Speaker 1: with people, you can at least like make it look real.

658
00:37:11,640 --> 00:37:15,000
Speaker 1: You google it, it doesn't come up. I identify myself

659
00:37:15,040 --> 00:37:16,839
Speaker 1: as a person of color within it when I'm very

660
00:37:16,880 --> 00:37:21,360
Speaker 1: obviously like just milky white. Um. I and my friends

661
00:37:21,400 --> 00:37:25,200
Speaker 1: used to call me the Milkman when I was like

662
00:37:25,200 --> 00:37:31,480
Speaker 1: like corn fed Captain America Midwestern Shocks. And so many

663
00:37:31,520 --> 00:37:33,680
Speaker 1: people have approached me about this is you did you

664
00:37:33,760 --> 00:37:35,600
Speaker 1: do this? And there's so many people who like our

665
00:37:35,680 --> 00:37:38,000
Speaker 1: online and they're just like, yep, this is yet another

666
00:37:38,600 --> 00:37:42,040
Speaker 1: trans woman who just thinks, you know, blah blah blah

667
00:37:42,040 --> 00:37:44,160
Speaker 1: blah blah. And it's people project shit onto me all

668
00:37:44,200 --> 00:37:46,560
Speaker 1: the time. Now. People just project whatever they want to

669
00:37:46,640 --> 00:37:48,719
Speaker 1: on me. That's the thing I've realized. I'm trying to

670
00:37:48,719 --> 00:37:50,560
Speaker 1: write about this. I'm trying to write about the harassment

671
00:37:52,360 --> 00:37:55,720
Speaker 1: trans women in in the world. Are our phantoms. People

672
00:37:56,280 --> 00:37:59,480
Speaker 1: hear us, they see us, but they don't really. They

673
00:37:59,680 --> 00:38:02,799
Speaker 1: have injured a version of us that they believe in

674
00:38:02,880 --> 00:38:04,400
Speaker 1: so much more strongly. And we can be in the

675
00:38:04,400 --> 00:38:08,959
Speaker 1: same room with them and there can be something making

676
00:38:09,000 --> 00:38:11,719
Speaker 1: noise upstairs, you know, rattling chains or thumping around on

677
00:38:11,760 --> 00:38:14,480
Speaker 1: the floor, and people will be like, there's that trans

678
00:38:14,520 --> 00:38:17,080
Speaker 1: woman again, and you can be there be like I'm

679
00:38:17,120 --> 00:38:22,759
Speaker 1: not that, I'm this person, I'm someone else, and that's

680
00:38:22,800 --> 00:38:27,040
Speaker 1: all they'll hear. Is the phantom. But then you'll find

681
00:38:27,080 --> 00:38:28,719
Speaker 1: someone who's in the room with you and sees you

682
00:38:28,800 --> 00:38:32,600
Speaker 1: and knows you and says, Hi, you are the person

683
00:38:32,680 --> 00:38:37,879
Speaker 1: I've been looking for my whole life. That's worth it.

684
00:38:37,880 --> 00:38:41,040
Speaker 1: It's worth it for that. When people have quote intellectual

685
00:38:41,080 --> 00:38:43,920
Speaker 1: debate about trans people, they talk about them like they're

686
00:38:43,960 --> 00:38:46,920
Speaker 1: this abstract concept conjured up for the sake of argument.

687
00:38:47,680 --> 00:38:50,400
Speaker 1: And even when media outlet's wrote about the harassment Emily

688
00:38:50,440 --> 00:38:53,560
Speaker 1: phased after speaking up when our coworkers signed the Harper's letter,

689
00:38:54,080 --> 00:38:57,400
Speaker 1: they covered it like some kind of petty ideological workplace dispute.

690
00:38:58,080 --> 00:39:01,320
Speaker 1: But this is about Emily's actual life and our actual

691
00:39:01,400 --> 00:39:04,920
Speaker 1: lived experience as a trans woman. Gender is hard coded

692
00:39:04,960 --> 00:39:06,160
Speaker 1: into us in a way that I think it's hard

693
00:39:06,200 --> 00:39:09,719
Speaker 1: persist people to understand or imagine. I think art is

694
00:39:09,719 --> 00:39:11,480
Speaker 1: the best way to express that. I can tell you

695
00:39:11,520 --> 00:39:13,160
Speaker 1: all the times until I'm blue in the face that

696
00:39:13,239 --> 00:39:16,600
Speaker 1: like womanhood makes more sense to me. That taking estrogen

697
00:39:16,680 --> 00:39:19,000
Speaker 1: made my brain come alive in the way it never had.

698
00:39:19,440 --> 00:39:23,920
Speaker 1: That having that my body increasingly feels like my body,

699
00:39:23,960 --> 00:39:27,000
Speaker 1: and before it was just kind of like the substraction

700
00:39:27,080 --> 00:39:30,439
Speaker 1: that I existed within that now I can be like Yeah,

701
00:39:30,480 --> 00:39:32,560
Speaker 1: it would be cool to look like Keanu Reeves for

702
00:39:32,600 --> 00:39:34,359
Speaker 1: a day, but I would immediately want to come back

703
00:39:34,400 --> 00:39:36,160
Speaker 1: to who I am right now because this is home.

704
00:39:36,360 --> 00:39:39,600
Speaker 1: This is what feels like home. I mean, it would

705
00:39:39,600 --> 00:39:41,920
Speaker 1: be cool to look like Kiana Reeves day. He's very handsome.

706
00:39:41,960 --> 00:39:44,640
Speaker 1: He's very handsome. I don't know if you've noticed. But

707
00:39:46,600 --> 00:39:57,359
Speaker 1: more after this, quick brain, let's get right back to it.

708
00:39:58,400 --> 00:40:00,920
Speaker 1: Just like Neo, use the internet to help understand the

709
00:40:00,960 --> 00:40:04,200
Speaker 1: true nature of identity, Emily is hardened to say so

710
00:40:04,239 --> 00:40:07,120
Speaker 1: many people using social media to get closer to who

711
00:40:07,160 --> 00:40:10,400
Speaker 1: they are too. The thing I always tell people who

712
00:40:10,480 --> 00:40:13,399
Speaker 1: reach out to me on Twitter dot com like, I

713
00:40:13,480 --> 00:40:18,400
Speaker 1: just don't feel attached to my manhood. It's usually trans women.

714
00:40:19,000 --> 00:40:21,920
Speaker 1: I'm my manhood at all, And I'm like, it's worth

715
00:40:21,960 --> 00:40:25,919
Speaker 1: probing that you might just be a cist guy who

716
00:40:26,040 --> 00:40:28,359
Speaker 1: has like these restrictions that have been placed on you

717
00:40:28,400 --> 00:40:30,560
Speaker 1: that you don't feel comfortable with, and learning what those

718
00:40:30,600 --> 00:40:35,880
Speaker 1: are and better defining yourself is fine? Is good? Is optimal?

719
00:40:36,440 --> 00:40:39,000
Speaker 1: Everybody should have to examine why their gender is the

720
00:40:39,040 --> 00:40:41,040
Speaker 1: way it is, and what about the ways it's been

721
00:40:41,080 --> 00:40:43,520
Speaker 1: programmed in for them work for them, and what don't.

722
00:40:44,120 --> 00:40:46,480
Speaker 1: I'm a very feminine trans woman. I've run all the

723
00:40:46,520 --> 00:40:49,960
Speaker 1: way the opposite direction of how I was raised. But

724
00:40:50,040 --> 00:40:52,040
Speaker 1: I like it. I like wearing dresses, and I like,

725
00:40:52,440 --> 00:40:54,840
Speaker 1: you know, going out for for for brunch with my

726
00:40:54,880 --> 00:40:58,279
Speaker 1: girlfriends when we can leave the house. Um, I like

727
00:40:58,480 --> 00:41:00,359
Speaker 1: all those things that you as socially it with an

728
00:41:00,360 --> 00:41:03,560
Speaker 1: extremely basic white lady, because I'm an extremely basic white lady.

729
00:41:03,600 --> 00:41:05,719
Speaker 1: But like that feels good, That feels like a home.

730
00:41:06,040 --> 00:41:08,279
Speaker 1: I want everybody's gender to feel like home to them,

731
00:41:08,320 --> 00:41:10,360
Speaker 1: and I think for many SIS people it doesn't, and

732
00:41:10,360 --> 00:41:12,520
Speaker 1: they don't look into it and they don't understand why

733
00:41:12,920 --> 00:41:15,080
Speaker 1: when it might be just one thing. It might be

734
00:41:15,160 --> 00:41:18,239
Speaker 1: just like, okay, yeah, I'm a SIS guy. But but

735
00:41:18,440 --> 00:41:21,399
Speaker 1: this thing where we all sit around and you know, um,

736
00:41:21,600 --> 00:41:24,760
Speaker 1: compare notes about women we've had sex with doesn't feel

737
00:41:24,760 --> 00:41:26,360
Speaker 1: good to me. It doesn't feel right to me. I

738
00:41:26,400 --> 00:41:28,480
Speaker 1: don't like this aspect of my gender. Then you could

739
00:41:28,560 --> 00:41:31,200
Speaker 1: cut it out of your life and you'll feel better,

740
00:41:31,239 --> 00:41:34,560
Speaker 1: you'll feel more whole. Or maybe you're like me, and

741
00:41:34,600 --> 00:41:36,000
Speaker 1: you sat there and listened to all of that and

742
00:41:36,000 --> 00:41:39,239
Speaker 1: you're like, oh my god, I feel like really uncomfortable

743
00:41:39,360 --> 00:41:42,719
Speaker 1: right now there's this element of I feel like a spy,

744
00:41:42,800 --> 00:41:46,920
Speaker 1: like a spy who's like learning secrets about how I behaved.

745
00:41:47,960 --> 00:41:49,640
Speaker 1: And I didn't understand that when I was in high

746
00:41:49,680 --> 00:41:54,000
Speaker 1: school and all my friends were like, um, I didn't

747
00:41:54,040 --> 00:41:56,080
Speaker 1: understand why that may be uncomfortable. At the time, I

748
00:41:56,120 --> 00:41:57,640
Speaker 1: thought it was because I was a good Christian and

749
00:41:57,760 --> 00:41:59,960
Speaker 1: I didn't like to think about, you know, sexuality at all.

750
00:42:00,239 --> 00:42:02,759
Speaker 1: I do like hearing other women referred to that way,

751
00:42:02,920 --> 00:42:08,040
Speaker 1: like it is worth examining your gender. If you think

752
00:42:08,040 --> 00:42:10,520
Speaker 1: your sis, you're probably just gonna land on yeah I'm

753
00:42:10,520 --> 00:42:12,960
Speaker 1: a man or yeah I'm a woman, but you might

754
00:42:13,080 --> 00:42:15,799
Speaker 1: go somewhere more interesting, you know. I think I see.

755
00:42:15,840 --> 00:42:18,600
Speaker 1: One of the things that I think is really encouraging

756
00:42:18,600 --> 00:42:20,520
Speaker 1: to me. There's a number of people who use he,

757
00:42:20,680 --> 00:42:25,280
Speaker 1: they or she they pronouns, which is like, yeah, okay,

758
00:42:25,440 --> 00:42:28,320
Speaker 1: I'm comfortable being identified as a man or a woman,

759
00:42:28,520 --> 00:42:30,960
Speaker 1: but there is this part of me that does not

760
00:42:31,600 --> 00:42:36,239
Speaker 1: fit that binary and that is where that they comes in.

761
00:42:36,719 --> 00:42:39,480
Speaker 1: It's somewhere in the mushy middle, and most of us

762
00:42:39,520 --> 00:42:43,160
Speaker 1: live in the mushy middle. Like, yeah, I'm very feminine,

763
00:42:43,200 --> 00:42:47,000
Speaker 1: but I have several traditionally masculine things. I like, that

764
00:42:47,000 --> 00:42:48,959
Speaker 1: doesn't make me non binary. I don't want to claim

765
00:42:49,000 --> 00:42:51,799
Speaker 1: that identity, so that is worth. That is encouraging to me.

766
00:42:51,920 --> 00:42:55,000
Speaker 1: This idea that like more people are accepting that gender

767
00:42:55,640 --> 00:42:58,799
Speaker 1: is flexible, that it can change over time, that it

768
00:42:58,880 --> 00:43:02,520
Speaker 1: can um you can have better understanding of yourself over time,

769
00:43:02,960 --> 00:43:05,279
Speaker 1: that whatever was hard coded into you by society is

770
00:43:05,320 --> 00:43:09,239
Speaker 1: not necessarily what's hard coded into you by you. I mean,

771
00:43:09,280 --> 00:43:13,000
Speaker 1: you're seeing so many seemingly heterosexual people now be like,

772
00:43:13,200 --> 00:43:15,239
Speaker 1: you know, I think I might be by or I

773
00:43:15,239 --> 00:43:18,920
Speaker 1: think I might be paned because that door is open,

774
00:43:19,680 --> 00:43:22,080
Speaker 1: and I think that's going to happen with gender, and

775
00:43:22,080 --> 00:43:23,840
Speaker 1: I'm excited for it to happen with gender, and I

776
00:43:23,880 --> 00:43:26,399
Speaker 1: hope it happens with gender, because I don't think any

777
00:43:26,440 --> 00:43:30,240
Speaker 1: of us is holy man or holy woman. We're all

778
00:43:30,440 --> 00:43:33,960
Speaker 1: some combination of things from those those types, and then

779
00:43:34,000 --> 00:43:36,839
Speaker 1: we just we use words and pronouns to describe who

780
00:43:36,880 --> 00:43:40,080
Speaker 1: we are, and it's always an exact. Really early on

781
00:43:40,120 --> 00:43:43,320
Speaker 1: in transition, I read something along line, so there's I

782
00:43:43,360 --> 00:43:45,400
Speaker 1: don't I think it's eight billion people. There's eight billion

783
00:43:45,440 --> 00:43:47,640
Speaker 1: people on the planets. There are eight billion genders, And

784
00:43:47,680 --> 00:43:51,440
Speaker 1: like it seems like a lot, but yeah, genders are

785
00:43:51,920 --> 00:43:54,560
Speaker 1: vastly personal experience, and then we create these umbrellas to

786
00:43:54,600 --> 00:43:56,640
Speaker 1: place them under. And we only had two for a

787
00:43:56,640 --> 00:43:58,360
Speaker 1: long time, and now we have a bunch more, and

788
00:43:58,440 --> 00:44:01,920
Speaker 1: that's good, that's great. I think it is an exciting time.

789
00:44:02,040 --> 00:44:06,319
Speaker 1: I think that in the US especially, there is a

790
00:44:06,400 --> 00:44:11,640
Speaker 1: dawning awareness of the ways in which trans identities are

791
00:44:11,719 --> 00:44:15,960
Speaker 1: real and intersect with other identities, be that, you know, womanhood,

792
00:44:15,960 --> 00:44:20,839
Speaker 1: be that racial identities. Um, there's a there's a much

793
00:44:20,840 --> 00:44:22,919
Speaker 1: greater awareness of the ways that trans women of color,

794
00:44:23,120 --> 00:44:27,640
Speaker 1: particularly black and Latino Latina, particularly black and Latino trans

795
00:44:27,640 --> 00:44:30,600
Speaker 1: women are hugely at danger of violent crime and like.

796
00:44:30,800 --> 00:44:33,360
Speaker 1: But there is now increasingly an awareness of that. Awareness

797
00:44:33,440 --> 00:44:36,600
Speaker 1: is not action. Awareness does not save the lives of

798
00:44:36,719 --> 00:44:40,879
Speaker 1: any of those black trans women, but hopefully it makes

799
00:44:40,880 --> 00:44:44,359
Speaker 1: it easier and better and more just for future generations,

800
00:44:44,680 --> 00:44:47,440
Speaker 1: and hopefully that life expectancy, you know, raises up to

801
00:44:47,480 --> 00:44:50,480
Speaker 1: a level where, you know, the same as any of

802
00:44:50,520 --> 00:44:53,360
Speaker 1: the rest of us, get to lead long and fulfilling lives.

803
00:44:55,000 --> 00:44:57,000
Speaker 1: And we have things we need to work on in

804
00:44:57,040 --> 00:44:59,719
Speaker 1: the US, where it's far worse as the UK. The

805
00:44:59,800 --> 00:45:03,920
Speaker 1: UK has become just a disaster area for trans people,

806
00:45:04,120 --> 00:45:08,520
Speaker 1: these structural barriers they face, the degree to which folks

807
00:45:08,520 --> 00:45:10,919
Speaker 1: with very large platforms like j K Rowland are making

808
00:45:10,920 --> 00:45:14,360
Speaker 1: it harder for people people exist there. I live in

809
00:45:14,360 --> 00:45:18,080
Speaker 1: a country, the United States, where there's a a extremely

810
00:45:18,080 --> 00:45:22,080
Speaker 1: conservative Supreme Court that is making the country demonstrably a

811
00:45:22,280 --> 00:45:27,920
Speaker 1: worst place for equality, and yet they enshrined trans rights basically, um,

812
00:45:28,360 --> 00:45:31,120
Speaker 1: like the very baseline level of trans right. So it's

813
00:45:31,120 --> 00:45:34,799
Speaker 1: not crazy, like the least they could do. At least

814
00:45:34,800 --> 00:45:36,239
Speaker 1: they could do. They enshrined it because they were like,

815
00:45:36,280 --> 00:45:38,799
Speaker 1: you know what, the Constitution forces us to do this,

816
00:45:38,880 --> 00:45:41,600
Speaker 1: and like that was piece was like, you know what,

817
00:45:41,680 --> 00:45:43,120
Speaker 1: I don't want to do this, but I kind of

818
00:45:43,120 --> 00:45:50,080
Speaker 1: have to. So thank you, thank you neial course for that. Um,

819
00:45:50,160 --> 00:45:52,759
Speaker 1: that's not happening in the UK. The UK is increasingly

820
00:45:53,000 --> 00:45:57,520
Speaker 1: run by transphobic people for transphobic people, and that's going

821
00:45:57,600 --> 00:45:59,560
Speaker 1: to be a fight we have to win. Um, that's

822
00:45:59,560 --> 00:46:03,120
Speaker 1: going to be a I'm glad to undertake. But also

823
00:46:03,200 --> 00:46:05,960
Speaker 1: I'm not in the UK. I have trans woman friends

824
00:46:05,960 --> 00:46:09,720
Speaker 1: in the UK and they are terrified, you know, especially

825
00:46:09,800 --> 00:46:11,319
Speaker 1: now that the UK is no longer in the EU,

826
00:46:11,400 --> 00:46:13,320
Speaker 1: and they can't just DeCamp for like Germany or a

827
00:46:13,360 --> 00:46:16,839
Speaker 1: country that's better for trans rights. You know, Um, I'm

828
00:46:16,880 --> 00:46:18,640
Speaker 1: going to have to marry all of them so they

829
00:46:18,680 --> 00:46:21,680
Speaker 1: can move to the US, where we have the where

830
00:46:21,719 --> 00:46:24,319
Speaker 1: we have the you know what. I don't want to

831
00:46:24,360 --> 00:46:27,520
Speaker 1: do this, but I have to. Well, Emily was offline.

832
00:46:27,920 --> 00:46:30,840
Speaker 1: Her friends took over her social media accounts so she

833
00:46:30,880 --> 00:46:33,360
Speaker 1: wouldn't have to deal with the barrage of threats and harassment.

834
00:46:33,960 --> 00:46:36,600
Speaker 1: Her friends used the opportunity to raise money for House

835
00:46:36,600 --> 00:46:41,319
Speaker 1: of tulip, an organization that supports trans and gender nonconforming

836
00:46:41,320 --> 00:46:45,160
Speaker 1: folks experiencing homelessness as a way of finding a little

837
00:46:45,239 --> 00:46:48,799
Speaker 1: light amidst all the darkness. So what have the last

838
00:46:48,840 --> 00:46:51,440
Speaker 1: forty eight hours been like for you? The thing I

839
00:46:51,480 --> 00:46:54,759
Speaker 1: found so interesting is when I was harassed, it was

840
00:46:54,800 --> 00:46:57,760
Speaker 1: about forty eight hours of the worst I've ever been online,

841
00:46:58,360 --> 00:47:02,560
Speaker 1: and I most through the thread about how hard it

842
00:47:02,600 --> 00:47:05,600
Speaker 1: had been and just like how I couldn't sleep and

843
00:47:05,600 --> 00:47:07,880
Speaker 1: how I faced death threats. Now, I just kind of

844
00:47:07,920 --> 00:47:10,919
Speaker 1: wanted to no longer exist, not in a self harmy way,

845
00:47:11,000 --> 00:47:14,759
Speaker 1: just like, oh, it's really hard to be alive right now.

846
00:47:14,800 --> 00:47:18,160
Speaker 1: So I posted that and a friend of mine who

847
00:47:18,160 --> 00:47:20,839
Speaker 1: works at Twitter, and then people at Box Media who

848
00:47:20,840 --> 00:47:23,800
Speaker 1: have contacts at Twitter, both were like, I think I can.

849
00:47:23,880 --> 00:47:25,200
Speaker 1: I think I can find a way to take care

850
00:47:25,200 --> 00:47:31,279
Speaker 1: of this instantly the harassment dropped. But probably and it

851
00:47:31,320 --> 00:47:33,839
Speaker 1: wasn't because it wasn't happening. When I go and look

852
00:47:33,880 --> 00:47:35,760
Speaker 1: for it, I can still find it, but I really

853
00:47:35,760 --> 00:47:38,120
Speaker 1: have to poke around because it's been hidden beneath so

854
00:47:38,160 --> 00:47:42,360
Speaker 1: many layers, and good, I'm glad it's in beneath so

855
00:47:42,400 --> 00:47:46,640
Speaker 1: many layers. That kind of hateful speech is I believe,

856
00:47:46,880 --> 00:47:50,080
Speaker 1: you know, it exists within society, but doesn't have to

857
00:47:50,120 --> 00:47:52,680
Speaker 1: be on privately owned platforms. Like if somebody wants to

858
00:47:52,719 --> 00:47:54,920
Speaker 1: stand in the public square and yell about how trans

859
00:47:54,920 --> 00:47:58,400
Speaker 1: women shouldn't exist, I'm not going to stop them, but

860
00:47:58,800 --> 00:48:00,719
Speaker 1: they should not be given a bull horn. You know,

861
00:48:00,880 --> 00:48:03,280
Speaker 1: they should not be given a bullhorn. A corporation should

862
00:48:03,320 --> 00:48:05,000
Speaker 1: not come down to that person and hand them a

863
00:48:05,040 --> 00:48:08,520
Speaker 1: bullhorn emblazoned with their their their symbol or their logo

864
00:48:08,640 --> 00:48:11,400
Speaker 1: rather and let them just shout into it, like if

865
00:48:11,440 --> 00:48:15,040
Speaker 1: they want to shout in the park whatever. But what

866
00:48:15,160 --> 00:48:18,760
Speaker 1: happens functionally is that online they you know, one person

867
00:48:18,800 --> 00:48:22,960
Speaker 1: becomes five people, sometimes literally, sometimes they set up five accounts,

868
00:48:23,080 --> 00:48:25,640
Speaker 1: and sometimes it's just like they shout loud enough that

869
00:48:25,680 --> 00:48:27,799
Speaker 1: other people start shouting with their shouting. Other people start

870
00:48:27,840 --> 00:48:30,799
Speaker 1: shouting with their shouting, and like, sometimes that's how good

871
00:48:30,840 --> 00:48:33,120
Speaker 1: ideas spread, but most of the time that's how bad

872
00:48:33,160 --> 00:48:35,200
Speaker 1: idea is spread. We know so much about how that

873
00:48:35,920 --> 00:48:39,080
Speaker 1: takes people from maybe have a couple of questions about

874
00:48:39,080 --> 00:48:42,880
Speaker 1: transidentities that they're not sure about, and it radicalizes them.

875
00:48:42,880 --> 00:48:45,520
Speaker 1: It pushes them further and further in the direction of transphobia.

876
00:48:45,600 --> 00:48:48,200
Speaker 1: And then there's somebody right there reaching out their hand

877
00:48:48,239 --> 00:48:50,719
Speaker 1: to be like, have you heard about anti semitism or

878
00:48:50,800 --> 00:48:53,719
Speaker 1: you know, have you heard about here are some of

879
00:48:53,760 --> 00:48:55,960
Speaker 1: the other other things you can do to make the

880
00:48:55,960 --> 00:49:00,320
Speaker 1: world the worst place. And that person's like, thank you know,

881
00:49:00,680 --> 00:49:04,279
Speaker 1: but now I'm going to try This doesn't happened with everybody,

882
00:49:04,320 --> 00:49:05,640
Speaker 1: you know. I don't think I don't think J. K

883
00:49:05,800 --> 00:49:08,920
Speaker 1: Rowling is suddenly going to, you know, start um. I

884
00:49:08,960 --> 00:49:10,719
Speaker 1: don't think J. K Rowling is suddenly going to start

885
00:49:10,719 --> 00:49:14,440
Speaker 1: like hurling racist, racist slurs on Twitter. But this is

886
00:49:14,520 --> 00:49:16,880
Speaker 1: much like like now she's much less likely to examine

887
00:49:16,880 --> 00:49:18,919
Speaker 1: the way she uses characters of color in her books,

888
00:49:18,960 --> 00:49:23,759
Speaker 1: which is almost never good, and you know, like like

889
00:49:23,880 --> 00:49:28,040
Speaker 1: that's just that's the the The prevalence of social media

890
00:49:28,160 --> 00:49:31,160
Speaker 1: makes it so easy to not self examined, to not

891
00:49:31,280 --> 00:49:33,560
Speaker 1: ask those questions of yourself, and just like find some

892
00:49:33,640 --> 00:49:35,600
Speaker 1: of those people with bullhorns and just be like, I

893
00:49:35,640 --> 00:49:41,040
Speaker 1: agree with you. So my experience with Twitter was I

894
00:49:41,080 --> 00:49:43,720
Speaker 1: think they could make the platform better if they really

895
00:49:43,800 --> 00:49:47,160
Speaker 1: wanted to. For all the people on Twitter accusing Emily

896
00:49:47,200 --> 00:49:50,440
Speaker 1: of wanting to crush free speech, she's actually really open

897
00:49:50,480 --> 00:49:54,960
Speaker 1: with free discussion and criticism. In fact, she says criticism

898
00:49:55,000 --> 00:49:57,080
Speaker 1: has been helpful for her own understanding of the world

899
00:49:57,640 --> 00:50:00,040
Speaker 1: and her place in it. The nice thing about it

900
00:50:00,120 --> 00:50:03,840
Speaker 1: or is if I say a thing, and um, somebody

901
00:50:04,040 --> 00:50:07,440
Speaker 1: doesn't agree with that thing, who's from a different identity

902
00:50:07,480 --> 00:50:11,240
Speaker 1: than my own, and they push back against it, that's valid,

903
00:50:11,440 --> 00:50:14,399
Speaker 1: you know, like they're I don't do everything perfectly. People

904
00:50:14,400 --> 00:50:17,719
Speaker 1: should criticize me. I'm not above criticism. People have criticized

905
00:50:17,719 --> 00:50:22,120
Speaker 1: me and I've tried to make amends or edit the

906
00:50:22,200 --> 00:50:24,880
Speaker 1: article that they're you know, not happy with or whatever,

907
00:50:25,680 --> 00:50:28,160
Speaker 1: and you know, it always feels kind of shitty, you know,

908
00:50:28,280 --> 00:50:30,520
Speaker 1: You're always like I can't believe I screwed up. I

909
00:50:30,520 --> 00:50:32,560
Speaker 1: wish I hadn't screwed up, and you're kind of like

910
00:50:32,600 --> 00:50:36,920
Speaker 1: taking it on yourself. It's a natural human reaction. But

911
00:50:37,000 --> 00:50:39,399
Speaker 1: I've learned to not push that out, you know. I've

912
00:50:39,480 --> 00:50:42,080
Speaker 1: learned to be like I've learned to have the self

913
00:50:42,120 --> 00:50:45,200
Speaker 1: pity that's okay, that's a human thing, but also be like, Okay,

914
00:50:45,280 --> 00:50:48,759
Speaker 1: when you screw up, you screw up. A lot of

915
00:50:48,760 --> 00:50:51,400
Speaker 1: people don't learn that, and honestly, me learning it was

916
00:50:51,440 --> 00:50:53,680
Speaker 1: directly tied to come out as a trans woman, because

917
00:50:54,400 --> 00:50:56,439
Speaker 1: you kind of have to learn to just deal with

918
00:50:57,040 --> 00:50:59,400
Speaker 1: you realize all of the ways in which society is

919
00:50:59,440 --> 00:51:01,799
Speaker 1: telling why is about you? And then you start to

920
00:51:01,800 --> 00:51:04,760
Speaker 1: be like, well, what are other lives I believe about

921
00:51:04,760 --> 00:51:08,279
Speaker 1: people who aren't like me? I think it is hard

922
00:51:08,360 --> 00:51:11,759
Speaker 1: to escape the lies that are told about groups that

923
00:51:11,760 --> 00:51:14,440
Speaker 1: are not like you, but it's even harder to escape

924
00:51:14,520 --> 00:51:18,839
Speaker 1: the lies that you've told about yourself. Um, I uh,

925
00:51:19,400 --> 00:51:22,920
Speaker 1: spent years and years and years and years no way.

926
00:51:22,960 --> 00:51:25,040
Speaker 1: I wanted to be a girl, but thinking that that

927
00:51:25,160 --> 00:51:28,160
Speaker 1: didn't make me trans. I hadn't known from when I

928
00:51:28,200 --> 00:51:30,160
Speaker 1: was a little kid, well actually I had, I just

929
00:51:30,239 --> 00:51:34,000
Speaker 1: had those memories forcibly taken away from me. I know

930
00:51:34,160 --> 00:51:36,840
Speaker 1: I wasn't in tremendous pain about my gender. Well actually

931
00:51:36,920 --> 00:51:40,160
Speaker 1: I was. I was hiding it from myself. I just

932
00:51:40,200 --> 00:51:43,600
Speaker 1: felt like an automaton. And then one day I read

933
00:51:43,800 --> 00:51:48,080
Speaker 1: this interview with Daniel Lavery, the trans guy writer, and

934
00:51:48,200 --> 00:51:50,640
Speaker 1: he was like, I felt my whole life like I

935
00:51:50,719 --> 00:51:53,040
Speaker 1: was a brain in a jar, and now I don't.

936
00:51:53,080 --> 00:51:54,719
Speaker 1: I was like, I feel like a brain in a jar.

937
00:51:56,040 --> 00:52:00,279
Speaker 1: And I had known I was trans, but I thought

938
00:52:00,280 --> 00:52:01,880
Speaker 1: there was like a like a test I had to

939
00:52:01,920 --> 00:52:06,480
Speaker 1: pass p S a T for transit getting in probably

940
00:52:06,480 --> 00:52:09,520
Speaker 1: elite programs. And right up until I published my essay,

941
00:52:09,640 --> 00:52:11,440
Speaker 1: I was convinced that somebody was going to come and say,

942
00:52:11,480 --> 00:52:14,480
Speaker 1: you're not trans enough. And then I published my essay

943
00:52:14,480 --> 00:52:16,560
Speaker 1: and everyone was like, oh cool, your name is Emily. Great,

944
00:52:16,920 --> 00:52:19,000
Speaker 1: we love it. And now I have so many people

945
00:52:19,040 --> 00:52:20,840
Speaker 1: and this is kind of this is kind of a

946
00:52:20,840 --> 00:52:22,800
Speaker 1: shitty thing to say, but I hope people never stopped

947
00:52:22,800 --> 00:52:26,120
Speaker 1: tout staying I've forgotten your dead name, and like, I'm

948
00:52:26,120 --> 00:52:30,640
Speaker 1: sure they have, um, but that's also kind of great.

949
00:52:30,680 --> 00:52:32,520
Speaker 1: It's also kind of great to know that like Emily

950
00:52:32,560 --> 00:52:34,879
Speaker 1: makes more sense to the world than my old self did.

951
00:52:34,920 --> 00:52:36,720
Speaker 1: If you go look up videos of me on YouTube,

952
00:52:36,719 --> 00:52:38,920
Speaker 1: they're they're I'm just kind of sitting there like a lump,

953
00:52:39,400 --> 00:52:43,200
Speaker 1: just like gazing inarticulately into the distance. And then somebody

954
00:52:43,200 --> 00:52:45,520
Speaker 1: will ask me a question, and I'll speak up very

955
00:52:45,640 --> 00:52:48,000
Speaker 1: you know whatever, I'll speak up very smartly about whatever

956
00:52:48,040 --> 00:52:52,040
Speaker 1: it is I'm talking about, because my brain, you know,

957
00:52:52,560 --> 00:52:55,040
Speaker 1: is still interested in the same things and whatever. But

958
00:52:57,560 --> 00:52:59,560
Speaker 1: there were so many lives I've been told my whole

959
00:52:59,560 --> 00:53:02,120
Speaker 1: life that I had internalized about what it meant to

960
00:53:02,160 --> 00:53:03,600
Speaker 1: be trans, about what it meant to be a woman,

961
00:53:03,600 --> 00:53:05,960
Speaker 1: about what it meant to be the intersection of those

962
00:53:06,000 --> 00:53:08,239
Speaker 1: two identities of trans woman, about what it meant to be,

963
00:53:08,400 --> 00:53:10,840
Speaker 1: you know, a gay or straight or whatever. All of

964
00:53:10,880 --> 00:53:13,920
Speaker 1: these sort of spectrums that we fall on or fall within.

965
00:53:14,760 --> 00:53:17,560
Speaker 1: And I think one of the reasons that transphobia has

966
00:53:17,640 --> 00:53:20,399
Speaker 1: run so rampant right now. Uh So, it's because we're

967
00:53:20,400 --> 00:53:24,600
Speaker 1: the flavor dure which will pass in time, Um, I

968
00:53:24,640 --> 00:53:32,200
Speaker 1: mean never entirely structural inequality never goes away, but some

969
00:53:32,320 --> 00:53:35,920
Speaker 1: of it is. Also we symbolize of breaking down of

970
00:53:36,040 --> 00:53:39,239
Speaker 1: that order a little bit. We symbolize a breaking down

971
00:53:39,280 --> 00:53:42,719
Speaker 1: of Oh, if this binary isn't real, what other binaries

972
00:53:42,719 --> 00:53:47,360
Speaker 1: aren't real? What other systems are inequitable but other systems

973
00:53:47,880 --> 00:53:52,080
Speaker 1: can or should even be burned down? How is the

974
00:53:52,160 --> 00:53:55,200
Speaker 1: matrix real and how is it false? What does it

975
00:53:55,239 --> 00:53:56,839
Speaker 1: mean to take a red pill? What does it mean

976
00:53:56,880 --> 00:53:58,640
Speaker 1: to take a blue pill? What are you comfortable with

977
00:53:58,640 --> 00:54:00,520
Speaker 1: that you shouldn't be comfortable with? And what are you

978
00:54:00,680 --> 00:54:04,640
Speaker 1: uncomfortable about that you should examine more? What does it

979
00:54:04,800 --> 00:54:07,840
Speaker 1: mean to live in a world that is not entirely real,

980
00:54:07,960 --> 00:54:12,880
Speaker 1: that is built for you by people who want to

981
00:54:12,960 --> 00:54:15,960
Speaker 1: maintain their own power in the name of everything else

982
00:54:16,560 --> 00:54:20,600
Speaker 1: and above all else? Why is that spider drone living

983
00:54:20,640 --> 00:54:25,280
Speaker 1: in your stomach? Because that's crazy. Leave it to Emily

984
00:54:25,320 --> 00:54:28,120
Speaker 1: to send us off with a matrix joke. To donate

985
00:54:28,120 --> 00:54:31,239
Speaker 1: to Healse of Tulip, the nonprofit creating housing solutions for

986
00:54:31,280 --> 00:54:34,480
Speaker 1: trans and gender nonconforming people in Louisiana, check the link

987
00:54:34,480 --> 00:54:39,560
Speaker 1: in the episode description. Got a story about an interesting

988
00:54:39,600 --> 00:54:41,640
Speaker 1: thing in tech? I just want to say hi. You

989
00:54:41,640 --> 00:54:43,960
Speaker 1: can be us at Hello at tangodi dot com. You

990
00:54:43,960 --> 00:54:47,160
Speaker 1: can also find transcripts for today's episode at tangdi dot com.

991
00:54:47,200 --> 00:54:48,839
Speaker 1: There are no girls on the Internet was created by

992
00:54:48,840 --> 00:54:51,400
Speaker 1: Me Bridgetad. It's a production of I Heart Radio and

993
00:54:51,480 --> 00:54:55,360
Speaker 1: Unboss creative Jonathan Strickland as our executive producer. Terry Harrison

994
00:54:55,440 --> 00:54:58,239
Speaker 1: is our producer and sound engineer. Michael Amato is our

995
00:54:58,239 --> 00:55:02,040
Speaker 1: contributing producer. I'm your host, bridget Todd Special thanks to

996
00:55:02,080 --> 00:55:04,560
Speaker 1: Matt Owen. If you want to help us grow, rate

997
00:55:04,600 --> 00:55:07,680
Speaker 1: and review us on Apple Podcasts. For more podcasts from

998
00:55:07,719 --> 00:55:10,320
Speaker 1: iHeart Radio, check out the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcast,

999
00:55:10,400 --> 00:55:16,480
Speaker 1: or wherever you get your podcketsh